“In his late portraits, especially, Eakins sought the underlying structure and substance of the head and body and pulled no punches when it came to telling the truth about the individual who posed before him.” [1] Thomas Eakins claimed his right as an artist to read and represent the truth of what he saw before him, or what he believed the truth to be, even when it was at odds with another’s...

“Painted after Frederic Edwin Church’s first trip to Ecuador [1853], The Andes of Ecuador combines the scientific and religious concerns of Church’s time in one grand panorama. The infinite botanical detail, the terrifying depths of the abyss, and the overwhelming sense of unlimited space combine to communicate a powerful sense of the sublime.” [1] The painting encourages both...

With The Bathing Cove, circa 1918, the American modernist Maurice Prendergast continued to explore a theme that had preoccupied him for decades: groups of figures, decoratively arranged into a frieze-like formation, in a bucolic outdoor setting. Here, bathers are gathered on a grassy knoll by the water’s edge, while sailboats bob in the distance. Like an earlier generation of artists...

Painted in the mid-1960s, after the heyday of Abstract Expressionism and during the ascendancy of Minimalism and Pop Art, Belle is a compelling example of Robert Gwathmey’s steadfast commitment to Social Realism. Its acquisition for Reynolda House Museum of American Art is well documented and its meaning has been thoroughly explicated by the artist and others. In November 1978,...

At first glance, the scene in William Sidney Mount’s The Card Players—two men enjoying a game of cards—appears fairly benign. Looking closer, however, we notice signs of disarray. A jug on the floor and coins on the table signify that the men are both drinking and gambling. Discarded in the trash barrel, a piece of crumpled paper bears the word “sermon.” Worst of all, the roof has...